Title: Fallen Willow 2 0f 2
Author: tohonomike
Email: All characters belong to their rightful owners...the Joss/ME characters, and any other characters are clearly not mine. NO money is involved.
Summary: Somebody had a story idea recently…and this is how I'm purging it from my databanks.
Buffy was surprised to find the Crawford Street mansion fully rejuvenated, or so she perceived through the locked gate. The porch light and at least one other was on, but the realty company name was Chase Investments. So she made her way to Angel's old apartment, where things had truly begun t go bad the night of her birthday party.
Surprisingly, no one had ventured into the place, perhaps it was the slight but noticeable smell of … death in the air. She went inside, and found everything layered in dust.
'It has been awhile,' she thought, arms holding herself tightly for comfort, 'I miss you all…I miss you Angel…'
Buffy sat on the coffee table and wept.
The library was a tense, but nowhere near as unhappy a place as Angel's former lodgings. Rupert had tried to encourage the departure of the prominent couple, but they'd insisted on staying, albeit across the room, to make sure Giles boarded her himself, or they'd be hell to pay.
He'd looked perplexed, and with the idea in front of himself answered hat of course he would help the girl… it's part of being a Watcher to a Slayer.
Faith had explained, with Cordelia and Xander giving her encouragement and support, the entire Kakistos story and Faith's making her way to Sunnydale. Giles looked uncomfortable at the glaring omissions that implied how Faith had twice covered her lodging expenses. Cordelia interrupted the street bravado.
"Faith, you're now a friend of Cordelia Chase, and there'll be no more of that. You're clearly better than that and Giles will make sure that won't happen again. Right Giles?"
"Of course," Giles asserted, "In spite of a … breach between Buffy a-and Cordelia and Xander, they've ignored tradition and helped save the world. And your part of that."
He looked up at the teens, "Though if they are to continue a closer association with one Slayer, I'll not allow them to withhold equal support and assistance to the other. Xander's Halloween experience of last year means he knows why…"
The male teen froze a moment in contemplation, then nodded for both of them, "Fair enough Giles, as far as the Slayer-specific stuff goes…and if Buffy apologizes for screwing the vampire, failing to act, apologizing for desertion in the face of the enemy and swears never to engage in friendly relations with a vampire ever again…we will allow her to regain our trust and rebuild a friendship."
"It's unlikely she'd find another vampire with a soul," Giles responded neutrally.
"I just want to make sure this kind of thing never happens again, Giles. It may be too late for—well, she can at least tell us it won't happen again."
"You still blame her for Willow?" he asked quietly.
Cordelia interrupted, "No, we blame Willow for that. We blame Buffy for not dusting the bastard before it got to that point, Giles. We're entirely fair."
"Okay…" a quiet voice behind them almost whispered, tear tracks fresh on her face, her eyes swollen as she met the looks of the couple. "I, I'm sorry…"
Giles slowly moved to offer support for his surrogate daughter as Cordelia and Xander exchanged an almost telepathic look and nodded, Cordelia emphasizing, "For all of it?"
"Yeah…" the rather lonely girl sobbed, only to have the well-dressed couple hesitate only for a moment and hug her…even Cordelia…who no longer feared Buffy as a potential rival. They comforted the girl and cried, Cordelia pulling a surprised Giles into it, and a moment later Xander pulled Faith in, shrugging.
Giles spoke for them , "You're part of the family now, Faith, for good or bad our history and yours are one now."
It was weird for Faith… a first she felt she had found friends and safety, then feared it being lost… only to find out she was accepted as an equal in the reuniting family. Buffy called her mother, and told her about Faith's situation, and if it wasn't okay to stay at their place, if she could help Giles get her set up at his place.
Joyce on the phone discussed it with Rupert, and after a moment he hung up and with a relieved smile informed his children, "You'll be staying at Buffy's, but will also have a place here if you need a time out, Faith. That is also extended to you, Buffy. But it has to go through Joyce each time so we won't be duped by you nefarious teenagers."
A week passed, during which Amy and Jonathan openly declared themselves a couple, and while Cordelia and Xander didn't resume infestation of the library, they weren't strangers to the blonde slayer, said hello and twice ate lunch with her.
The new Slayer took some getting used to, but Cordelia and Buffy both liked her, the Boston native's personality falling somewhere between the two. Kakistos proved to be an amazingly easy vampire to eliminate, Cordelia and Xander responding with Giles in time to eliminate three minions and a wily vamp later identified as Mr. Trick. That vampire had been trying to abandon his master through the very rear entrance the Scoobies hoped to find little resistance in their attempt at rescue.
In spite of Cordelia's having to complain about a PCP gang member damaging her car to the cops and insurance company, having hit the vamp into the wall hard enough to break most of his bones, the vigilante group dusted their way in to see Faith thrust a beam through the ugly master vampire as Buffy covered her six.
Reports of a particularly gruesome animal attack on a student galvanized the gang to more patrols, Xander wearing goggles with special lenses then reporting locations to the Slayers who patrolled after them. Cordelia's repaired car suffered a second problem after resolving the Pete the Mr. Hyde guy at the school, when she struck him and a feral vampire that seemed to be trying to get Buffy.
Striking them quite hard, the two bodies hit a parked car hard, setting off a car alarm the Sunnydale Police would only tentatively investigate in an hour or so. Cordelia's car air bags activated, and she lost control of the car enough to glance off a light pole before coming to a stop. Faith, who'd been following Buffy after making sure that Amy and Jonathan, both beaten up pretty badly by Pete before the Slayers arrived, were on the way to the hospital with Giles, took stock of the situation and dove in with two stakes instead of one as Buffy picked herself up from a near miss with the cars.
Xander was helping Cordelia climb out of the car as Faith lashed out and stabbed the feral vampire, then spun-kicked it in the groin. Buffy grabbed Pete from the ground, only to find that he'd suffered too many car-related injuries and was dead. Turning, she watched Faith take apart the vamp, which she could only see from the back. Faith launched herself from a hit into a car, turning it into a somersault over the beast, which she grabbed and threw to Buffy, faced first.
Xander and Cordelia arrived and pulled out stakes, ready to help their friend. Xander called out and threw a stake to the blonde slayer, but not in time.
Faith threw her stake true, as the pain felt be the vamp ebbed as he fell into the hands of Buffy, its face resumed its human form.
"Buffy?" the confused Angel asked as he recognized her, and turned to dust.
Faith came up and saw the equally shocked faces of her friends Alex and Cor, "What's wrong guys? We got it before it could hurt B…"
Cordelia exclaimed with relief, "Thank you, Faith! Angelus was back and somehow you got him."
Faith looked shocked at this, and that her sister-slayer had fainted, caught by Xander from the stress of the moment, "F—k, I'm glad I dusted him instead of B again, ya know?"
Cordelia nodded in sympathy for the unconscious girl, "Yeah, I don't know how she got rid of that monster the first time, but I don't think she could have survived a second time."
Liam, Jana and Willow smiled as they heard the scream of a Power That Be that wouldn't now be able to enter the mortal realm, and that a certain law firm would continue to believe the time for its apocalyptic maneuverings lay decades if not further in the future, the presence of Angel no longer triggering the senses of seers and the interest of researchers.
"I hope she'll be okay," Liam considered, "It's strange not being there any more."
Willow smiled, "Yeah, but she has the others, and the new girl to help her. Hope that'll be enough. Well, I still have to say my good-byes to a certain wolfy musician in Redmond…"
Jana nodded as the girl faded out, "And I'll see you tomorrow for our assignment the next dimension over."
"Going to see Rupert?" Liam asked sadly.
"Yeah, you?"
"I think I'll watch them a few minutes longer before we play Guardian Angels to these Charmed Ones…"